


Saniika's Dream

by blythechild



Category: V for Vendetta (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-14
Updated: 2012-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-31 04:45:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/340024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/pseuds/blythechild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A member of the V for Vendetta fandom on Livejournal had a dream about V unmasking himself and Evey rejecting him. She wanted to turn it into a story but English was her second language. I wrote this in response to her dream description (hence the title - I never renamed it). After it was posted, people asked for a 'happily ever after', so I wrote the Epilogue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Unmasked

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fanfiction and as such I do not claim ownership over any characters herein. It was created as a personal entertainment.

“I cannot. Please, Evey, don’t ask this of me.”

“You must – surely you can see that.” She said quietly, shaking. “It’s too easy for you to hide behind it, keeping a part of you safe from me. If you care enough to share everything that you feel – that you _are_ \- then you must peel away everything. Like you did to me in prison.”

“It’s not the same…”

“You said that you loved me, V, but you won’t let me touch you or see you. Do you expect me to live on your words alone?” She stepped forward and touched his chest with both hands. “I told you that I loved you and I truly do. I love the man within you, now, please, give the rest of him to me.”

V’s heart slammed against his chest in a flurry of elation and terror at her words. _She loves me! But, why must the cost be so high? Evey, please – I can’t lose you._ Under the desire was fear; fear of continuing on, alone, without her. Endless days and nights tucked away in the damp and the gloom with no bodily comfort, no morsel of kindness for his shattered soul. His plans now complete, he had no further purpose, no reason to drive him anymore, and, in fact, he had stayed _just_ for her. He had wanted nothing but death, but now he wanted nothing but her. If she saw him, her love would pass over him like rain on the mountainside and she would realize her foolishness. She could leave, start again, but he – he would remain locked in the dungeon of her abhorrence, too lowly even to be missed once her shoes hit the pavement above in the cold light of day.

He curled his fists as he imagined her as Persephone committed to her reluctant love pact with the lord of the underworld but secretly aching for spring to arrive, and with it, her freedom from him. Why couldn’t she be satisfied with the man that she had known for the past year? Wasn’t _he_ the one that she loved? Why ruin it with a glimpse of his charred face – it wasn’t who he was anyway. He stalked past her suddenly and tried to calm the tidal wave of loathing and terror that he felt.

“This isn’t some conceit, Evey! Some sort of eccentric affectation!” With his back turned to her, his hands gestured fiercely at his mask. “I am burned EVERYWHERE! Horribly mutilated and scarred! Barely a man at all… but underneath that lies my heart and it loves you. You won’t _see_ that when I take off this mask – please don’t destroy what we have as a mere test of my fidelity.”

His hand swept out violently and smashed a vase on a nearby table. The moment made Evey jump a little, but she was decided in her course: she had to see him. She approached him carefully and ran her hands over the muscles of his back, feeling their coiled, malevolent tension. 

“I love you.” She whispered, and she felt him melt just a fraction at the words. “I don’t care about the burns, I just want to know that you’ll give me every single inch of yourself. I’ve never wanted someone this much, V. Lay yourself bare to me and I’ll be yours forever.”

She paused in awkward silence as her own nervous breathing matched the rise and fall of his chest. He trembled under her hands and hunched his back. She responded by wrapping her arms tightly about him and resting her cheek into his back.

“Do you really think that I’m that vain, V?”

Trust. It came down to trust. He had never trusted anyone but he wanted to trust her. He would have to, or lose her, and he could not be alone again. No more imaginary friends, no more losing one’s heartache in the depths of a book. He needed her and she needed this. He would trust her with this and she would love him: he would finally be happy.

V sighed and leaned his head back so that the back of his skull met the top of her head.

“For you, Evey.” He whispered. “Remember that I love you…”

He leaned forward and she pulled away from him so that he could reach up and unbuckle his mask. He did so slowly, as if it was for the last time, and as he pulled it away and laid it on the table beside him, his head tilted forward so that his wig curtained his face. Evey waited, holding her breath – waiting for him to turn and face her. V straightened his shoulders and pulled himself up to his full height before he turned and faced her.

The Gallery was dark and they were in a particularly gloomy corner of it; she could see nothing but the shadows of his wig. He did not move.

“V, come forward into the light. I can’t see you.”

Hesitantly, he took a step forward, and then another until light from a nearby lamp suddenly illuminated him completely. Evey was not ready for what stood before her. His skin was mottled and shiny like a strange mixture of melted plastic and feathery burnt paper. Sections of it puckered and knotted into painful looking scars that rose shockingly white above the patchwork of red, brown and black that was the rest of him. More disturbing was the fact that he had no eyelids, lips or nose to speak off, save the remnants of cartilage that still gave his face a vaguely human shape. His mouth was pulled into a rictus that showed off ivory teeth that faded to a swampy brown at the gum line. One ear was gone completely, while the other was a melted suggestion of one. But the worst part was his eyes. Rheumy and prominent without their protective shades, they looked on her with an aching, blue sadness that sailed past everything else and pierced her heart. The eyes knew love – they were his – but the rest of him was monstrous. 

“God!” Evey twitched noticeably and her hand flew to her face before she could stop herself. _Stop it! Stop it! Oh god, don’t do this to him!_

“Evey…” V stepped towards her and reached out his hand to draw her nearer.

“Don’t! …” She dodged him and turned half away trying to settle herself with what she had just seen. _Stop it! He’s the man you love – Stop this!_ “I didn’t think… I didn’t think that it would be…”

Fear boiled over inside him like an abandoned pot left on a stove, and he reached out and grabbed her hard by the arm wrenching her to face him.

“Evey!”

Her eyes widened in terror as he pulled her closer to him and further into the light. _It’s his voice but its not him – it couldn’t be – not the beautiful heart that I fell in love with. Not this… thing._ His grip bit into her and she yelped as she struggled to free herself from him.

“Evey, it’s still me! I love you!” His voice held a threat in it now.

She struggled and freed herself from him, backing away slowly from the animal before her – the animal that professed love.

“I need… n-need time, V…” She lowered her eyes in shame and whispered to her feet still backing away from him.

“No…”

“Just some time…” 

Evey turned to head for her bedroom, for the peace and sanctuary that it afforded. She just needed to absorb what had happened. She had asked for him completely and he had given her just that. Now, she would take the time to come to grips with it and she would emerge with nothing but her heart for him.

“Evey, NO!” V caught her and lifted her off the floor by her arms, his face a caricature of hate and scorn. “You learned to accept your own death! You learned strength and freed your soul from chains, but you CANNOT ACCEPT ME?!?”

He shook her violently, her head flopping back and forth helplessly.

“V! Stop!”

“I risked EVERYTHING TO BE WITH YOU! I TOLD YOU THAT IT WOULD BE LIKE THIS – WHY DIDN’T YOU HEED ME? **I LOVE YOU**!”

“V! STOP!!” She screamed as she kicked and clawed at him, wriggling in an attempt to unbalance him.

V watched her fight against him, small and crushable, and felt the sudden urge to destroy her completely. Every fiber of him began to shake with the knowledge of his inescapable fate: dying alone. Against all odds, she had loved him. She had held the promise of something greater than an iconic death: nights of tender whispers in the dark, kisses that spelled forever in breath, a union that would obliterate years of torture and hate once and for all. But now, all of that was gone because of his true face. He did not want to destroy her, he wanted to destroy himself.

He threw her from him and she landed hard and slid across the stone floors towards her room. She lay for a moment regaining the wind that he had knocked out of her, whimpering. _Selfish girl! You’ve destroyed the only man who ever truly loved you. And such a love! Look at what he risked for you? You don’t deserve to be anywhere near him…_

V dropped to his knees heavily and threw his uncovered head back in a loud sob. He curled his shoulders forward and sobbed again, his entire upper body hitching with the effort until he threw back his head again and howled like some dying, caged thing. The stonewalls echoed his cry and it seemed to continue on forever, shaking Evey down through her bones. V began to grab and claw at his own face, now deeply in shadow as he moaned and rocked frantically.

“V, don’t…” She bent up on one elbow and reached out to him with her other hand. “Please, my love…”

His head rose out of his hands in the dimness as a low growl emanated from him. Evey’s heart turned cold. He climbed to his knees and lingered there just watching her. His shoulders bunched and vibrated against the fading light and the hair of his wig quivered. _What are you thinking? How can I say that I’m sorry, V?_

The knot of shame and grief erupted suddenly in her stomach and Evey stumbled to her feet, eyes blurry with tears. She stood for a moment transfixed by his kneeling silhouette and then she ran, not for her room but for any place where the darkness could swallow her up. Her heartbeat and the rasp of her breath filled her senses as she fumbled along darkened corridors unsure of where they would lead. She just had to be away – she could not face him, could not face what she had done to him.

“Evey!” His voice echoed down the corridor from a distance.

She turned but she could not see him. Her cries were coming sharp and steady now, and her tears were making her vision murky.

“Evey! Come back!” Footsteps thundered in the passage behind her.

Evey hit a T-section in the tunnels outside of the Gallery – it had been a minor miracle that she had found the doorway out and that it had been unlocked. The tunnels were unlit and labyrinthine, and she was feeling her way along with her hands. She did not like the dark and her mind suddenly snapped to an old childhood nightmare of being chased by an unseen, bloodthirsty monster while her feet were trapped in quicksand. Her breath came in short, desperate gulps and her heart rang out like a church bell in her ears. _Can he hear my heart? Is he tracking me with it?_ The footsteps behind her got louder and faster. Was that snarling she heard? Was he hunting her down like a rabbit in a briar patch? She had to get out – she had to get away! Light! _He won’t chase me into the light!_

“EVEY!” The voice was roaring now.

She hit another dead end in the dark, and she cried out in fear as she felt him draw closer.

“Let me OUT!” She screamed.

Frantically, she returned down the way that she came and tried another tunnel, all the while his footfalls grew louder, louder and louder. 

“EEEEEE-VEEEEEEEEEEEEY!” He did not sound human anymore.

She scrabbled along the limestone walls, fingers bleeding from being worn away on their rough surface. She felt nothing but the energy of fear, nothing but the sickly high of adrenalin. His footsteps were so close now, he was just moments away. Then she felt a breeze cool the sweat on her brow. The breeze carried with it the smell of damp, decaying leaves, petrol exhaust and the rain-washed grit of street gutters. A way out! There is a way out ahead! Abandoning her grip on the walls, Evey ran flat out in front of her. Slowly, the damp tunnel floor ahead of her glistened, glowed, and then shone with the shape-defining lustre of natural light. She stumbled as her foot caught on something and her knees crashed into concrete just above her ankles: stairs. 

Evey looked up and saw a grey square at the top of the stairway. It was early dawn by the looks of it, and raining. Not much light seeped down to where she was but it was enough to climb by. The grey square had a grate over it and she prayed that it was not locked otherwise she was trapped. She raced up the stairs and stood for a moment at the top while a wave of dizziness washed over her. Her knees stung and she looked down to see deep cuts in them that trailed blood down her claves and over her shoes. She reached out for the grating but stopped at the sound of his voice.

“Evey! Please!”

It was not an animal’s voice, it was filled with sorrow. He cried out her name like something wounded. 

“Wait…” He murmured, his hand outstretched to her in the dimness.

“Evey, don’t leave me, _please_. You are all that I have left – all that was ever good about me. I love you, the promise of you, so deeply that I gave you everything…”

A sob burst from her chest at his words. As if she was not aware of what she had been given, and what she had squandered! She trembled uncontrollably in shame at her actions, her silly schoolgirl notions that had broken him. She wished that she could mend him somehow or take back the look on her face in that moment of revelation, but they were well beyond that now. V began to climb the stairs to her slowly, as if worried that he would spook a cornered animal. His hand remained outstretched to her in front of him.

“I don’t expect love – not now – but please don’t abandon me this way. Don’t leave me alone down here in the darkness, Evey. All alone without you…” He reached the top stair but the shadows of dawn lay thick around him and she could not see his face, though she knew that he was crying by the sound of his voice.

“I cannot look you in the face anymore.” She sobbed and heaved, trying to catch her breath. _I can’t live with the shame of it, V… the shame of what I did._

A tortured cry ripped from him as his head dropped and his hand fell to his side, curled into a tight fist.

“I _need_ you, Evey! I need you to save me!”

“Can’t you save yourself?” She asked without thinking.

“Does it bloody well _look like_ I can save myself?!” He gestured vehemently to his Fawkesian outfit and the shadowy passage behind him. “I am a fundamentally broken man who has only _ever_ known a moment’s peace with you!”

“Oh God!” Evey cried and buried her face in her hands.

V’s outline sagged in defeat. His curled fist balled tighter and shook momentarily then flew to his side and unsheathed a silver knife with a sharp zing. Evey looked up from swollen eyes and saw him grab her and push her against the tunnel wall, angling his blade just below their throats. His gruesome face flashed suddenly into the grim morning light and Evey gasped again – not because of his disfigurement, but because of the grief that she read in his eyes. Tears streamed down his face and dampened the front of his doublet.

“Free me, Evey! Release me from this hell! Cut it off for me – I cannot do it myself…”

Realization hit Evey like a sledgehammer and she recoiled from him wriggling and screaming hysterically.

“NO! NO, I CAN’T - **I WON’T CUT YOU!** ”

“Please. My life is done. Cut it off me! See the man underneath this one who loves you one last time…”

Evey let out a bloodcurdling scream as if her own throat was being cut and thrashed against him. V grappled with her frantically, unable to let her go just yet despite her fear. If this were all he had left then he would take it.

“NO, V!!! NO!”

Evey grabbed for the knife and tried to pull it away from his face. Their arms battled at opposite angles and the knife blade lowered to their torsos. She began to kick and slam against him, and V fell off balance and grabbed her around the small of her back with his knife hand. Evey landed a vicious kick to the side of V’s knee and it buckled as he fell crashing into her and the stone floor below. She made a painful gasping sound and then called out his name sharply. V sat up and away from her to see the tip of his knife blade protruding from Evey’s abdomen in a rapidly expanding pool of blood.

“Oh Jesus, NO!” He cried as he brushed her blouse and his fingers came away bloody.

“Aaaaaahhhhhhhhh…” Evey moaned and stiffened around the blade.

“EVEY!” He fumbled, unsure of what to do – there was so much blood.

“I’m…sorry, V.” Evey’s face had already gone pale and her eyes were turning glassy. “I was foolish – I never deserved your love…”

“No, Evey, NO!” He cradled her body into his and heard her moan with the movement. “Come back to me! Come back to me! Don’t leave me here alone! I CAN’T BE ALONE!”

Her arms went limp in his while he chanted. He squeezed her body tightly to him and let out a howl that shook every part of him as it drained from his body. He leaned Evey’s body back down to the floor, her eyes now closed as if sleeping, and stood up backing away from her. He nearly fell backwards down the stairs, and when he gained his feet again, he turned and ran as if her ghost was chasing him, thirsty for revenge.

V burst into the Gallery and looked around at all of the beauty that he had surrounded himself with over the years – all of the art, books, and furnishings that he had tempted _her_ with over the past year. They were nothing. Meaningless; just hollow and gaudy masks to hide himself from himself. Now she was gone and he would have nothing but these masks to comfort him over the long remaining years of his life. Better to have no masks at all. 

With every ounce of fury that he could muster he destroyed his home and all of his worldly possessions. Every painting slashed and burned, every book ripped to pieces, every stick of furniture smashed, every piece of china shattered – but still his heart throbbed with hate. After all, these things did not take her life, his face had – it had to go too. The Gallery lay in flaming, tattered ruins around him as he stepped over the detritus that had once been a Caravaggio, or part of the baby grand piano, or a 45 from the Wurlitzer. He went to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet to find an old, unused straight razor. It sat next to a bottle of Evey’s favorite skin cream and he lingered a moment touching the edge of it gently. His finger curled at the realization that she no longer had any need for it, and he pounced on the razor instead. He stormed to the kitchen and lit all of the burners of the gas range on high. He leaned dangerously close to the flames as he rolled the razorblade in one of the burner’s heat. He was not sterilizing it; he just wanted it to hurt like hell when he started slicing his own face off with it.

V moved to the kitchen sink, leaving the stove alight. He grabbed the lower portion of one ruined cheek and pulled it taunt, angling the heated razor above it and pressing down and into his scarred flesh without hesitation. The pain, sadly, was a mere echo of what it should have been; so keen was the seizing of his heart throughout. Momentarily, he looked down into the sink and saw the two teacups that they had used that morning. Blood flowed from his face into the sink and swirled around the drain with the water that leaked from the faucet. For an instant he thought that the bloody vein had formed the shape of a heart, but in the end he saw that he was mistaken: the heart split in two and then ebbed away forever into the underbelly of London.


	2. Epilogue

Her eyes were open but all she could see was darkness. On her knees in the black and the wet, she felt the burning in her stomach and the strangled cry of demons all around her. _This is Hell. There is a Hell and I’m in it._ She wondered vaguely if she would meet anyone she knew there in time. Would _he_ be there? She did not want him there – not in suffering, anyway – but she would have traded almost anything for just one more moment with him. Just one.

The burning turned into a vicious hot slice through her abdomen suddenly, and she had to stop and gasp for breath in order to still the pain. _It’s only what you deserve, honey._ Her knees felt like the flesh had been flayed away not long ago and she wondered how much further she would have to crawl until she reached Hell proper. She drew in a fortifying breath and tried to stand: crawling was less painful but too slow. Who knew how far she had to travel? She scrabbled up the tunnel wall blindly and braced herself against it as another piercing wave of pain assailed her. Her vision melded into bright violet, crimson and burning white, then returned to black as the pain faded. _Not so bad now – keep moving._ Her feet curled under her as she gingerly stumbled across the wet, stone floors. What had happened to her shoes? Christ, stuck in Hell for eternity with no shoes…

There was no light to guide her – just the screaming that she followed down the tunnel – yet she had lost her fear that had chased her towards the surface a short while ago. If there’s a Minotaur at the end of this maze, she thought, he would not have my fear as a prize! She crept forward, only marginally faster than she had crawled, with one hand braced on the unseen wall and the other holding her stomach. She did not notice that her blouse was wet where she held herself.

Her bracing hand met with a corner and she turned in the only direction that the tunnel would allow her. How many turns had she made now? Wouldn’t it be amusing if Dante was right and Hell was circular… She shook the thought from her head and another white-hot stab of pain nearly toppled her into a wet puddle at her feet. A small whimper escaped her, but if the wailing creatures that lay ahead heard her, they paid her no mind. Through the haze of searing pain, she thought that she saw light. The racket had certainly increased as she had walked – perhaps it was not much further now. _Just make it to the light, no matter what lurks there, and you can rest. You can lay down, a job well done…_

Her arms and legs felt cold, her fingers and toes were numb. The dizziness that she had originally taken for pain was rapidly becoming nausea. She felt faint. Her limbs became clumsy, like thick gangly slabs of meat, hindering her movements as much as helping them. But the light drew closer, as did the sounds of fury.

Nearer and nearer still – she was almost there.

She stumbled and crashed to her knees, sending crackling jolts of pain up through her legs to her pelvis and around her abdomen. She cried out loudly and lay down on her side with her back to the wall just inches from the entrance to the tunnel. The wailing died down for a second then was taken up with renewed force. She smelled sulfur and burnt wood, gas and the cloying scent of charred wool. Pieces of burnt paper, no more than winged ash really, floated past her and on down the tunnel carried away on eddies of unseen air. She reached out and wrapped her fingers around the corner of the wall at its base – just a few more inches and she would be in the light, she could rest. 

She was so cold.

With all the strength left to her funneled into her fingers, she hauled her body sideways into the entrance, half in a room and half in the tunnel behind her. The pain was excruciating. She closed her eyes tightly and willed the slicing and throbbing in her gut to cease. A new scream arched over the old ones, and she was surprised to discover that it was her own. With her presence articulated, the other wails ceased entirely. She waited, her eyes still shut, until her interior world stopped spinning, then, she cracked them open staring through tears around the room.

The place did look like Hell indeed, but it was the Shadow Gallery. Nothing remained recognizable to her save the bones of the structure itself. Everything had been destroyed; everything was in pieces. Small fires burnt in smoldering piles throughout the main room and in the far gloom that was the kitchen, she saw that the stove was on fire. _My God! One’s personal Hell came tailor-made, apparently._ She blinked for a moment and then spotted movement in the kitchen. Her vision blurred unhelpfully in and out of focus, but in a single instant of clarity she identified it.

“V!” She called out, her bloodied hand stretched out feebly across the floor in his direction.

A shadow in the kitchen froze and then slowly turned around. The flames from the stovetop set off strange highlights in his wig. His face was hidden. She cried out again – perhaps he had not heard her. Perhaps he was not really there at all. Her voice barely raised above a whisper. She was so tired, so cold: she would not be able to crawl to him. She whimpered his name to herself and let the exhaustion take her into the blackness. _It wasn’t him,_ she told herself, _he’s not dead, and he wouldn’t brave the underworld to save me. Not anymore…_

\-------------------------------------------------

Evey awoke to the clinical monochrome of teal linoleum and the sterile tang of disinfectant masquerading as a pine forest. Her mouth was unsavorily dry and she felt horribly exposed as she looked around at the half dozen machines hooked into her via intravenous lines.

“Doctor, she’s conscious.”

“Wonderful. Viola? Viola, can you hear me? Nurse, give her some water for her throat…”

A young man, barely old enough to shave, leaned over her and flashed a bright light into both eyes. He poked, prodded and adjusted various drips while asking her if she heard him, and, how she felt. The nurse raised her up slightly and gently administered some water, which she half swallowed, half choked up.

“There’s a dear, steady as she goes…” Murmured the nurse.

“Viola, my name is Dr. Fielding. You’re at Central Grace Medical Center in London.” The prepubescent doctor paused for a moment and stared at her critically. “Do you know your last name or where you live?”

“Viola?” She croaked.

“Yes. The policeman who found you and brought you in said that your name was Viola but he left before we could get any further information from him.”

“Oh. What happened to me?”

“You were attacked, robbed and stabbed by street thugs, Viola. A policeman found you in a doorway leading to a sewer service tunnel – your lucky to be alive. Could’ve bled out before anyone noticed you…”

The doctor spoke as he updated her chart, not making eye contact with her. His bedside manner needed work. He clicked his pen officiously and replaced it in the pocket of his medical coat, waving off the nurse who was _actually_ seeing to her comfort.

“Must’ve had a guardian angel…” She croaked again. She wanted him out of her room. She wanted to be alone.

“Hardly, my dear. It was a sound pair of English surgical hands that removed the knife from you without rupturing the peritoneal sack and prevented you from dying of septic shock.” He snorted. “So, do you remember your name? Where you live?”

“If it’s the bill that you’re worried about, doctor – don’t be. I work for the BTN. My name is Viola Hardy – I’m an admin. assistant there.”

_Obnoxious jackass – get out of my room! Can’t you see that I’ve just come back from the dead?_

“Well, good then!” He seemed relieved that his interrogation had worked and readied himself to leave. “You’ll be happy to know, Ms. Hardy, that you can leave in a couple of days, and once you have fully recovered from the surgery, you should suffer no ill effects from the stabbing. Yes, quite fortunate indeed that you had a good English surgeon at hand…”

“And a good English cop…” She added dryly. This bigot was exactly the sort of person that V had tried to save England from.

_V… Oh God, I’m so sorry…._

“Speaking of the police, they will wish to speak to you about your… disturbance. I’ll notify them of your status.”

“Oh, don’t go to any trouble, doctor.” She said a little too quickly.

The doctor turned from the door to face her, a thin smile across his lips.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ms. Hardy. It’s my job…”

The door clicked shut and she was alone, finally. Alone and inexplicably alive. She raised herself up on the pillows of her bed and tried to think. She would not have long – perhaps another 12 hours before the police showed up and figured out that no one named ‘Viola Hardy’ worked at the BTN. She started to pull the I.Vs from her arms. 12 hours to make the room stop spinning and the ache of her stitches manageable enough to slip away. But, away to where?

The last memories of V and the Gallery flooded around her instantly, detonating in her soul like a chemical explosive. Tears brimmed at her eyelids as she looked around her dim suite to make sure that she did not share the room with anyone, and then she buried her head in her hands and sobbed uncontrollably. _What have I done! What will I do now… without him? I’ve lost everything – all of the gifts that he gave to me, all of that love, spoiled._

She cried until she choked on her own breath, until the hitching sobs sent hiccups of pain radiating out from her abdomen. She leaned her head back into the pillows and willed herself to calm down. _No sense in tearing your stitches. Also, there’s no sense in grieving for him until you have a safe place to do it. Grieving for him…_ Where was he? What would he do to himself? Would she ever see him again? The man that she loved…

Grief and fear churned her insides to acid and the tears flowed freely down her cheeks and onto her pillows. She closed her eyes tight to make the tears stop, but her spirit was not really up to it. She opened her mouth in a silent scream and them clapped her hands over it to smother the moaning that was about to erupt from her. Her breath came short and her torso began to tremble again – she was trembling everywhere.

“I’m s-so sorry, V… if only I could take it b-back…” She whispered to herself because the words would no longer remain inside her. “Oh V, where are you? Where did you go?”

“I’m right here.”

Evey nearly leapt out of her bed at the sound of his voice, though he had spoken more softly than she. A pull curtain near the bed in the corner of the room fluttered and then Guy Fawkes was there, standing 10 feet away from her as if he had materialized from the shadows themselves.

“Y-you’re not dead…” Evey said stupidly as she clutched her bed sheet over her.

“No.” He murmured. “But it’s not for lack of trying…”

“Y-you were the policeman who brought me here…”

“Yes.”

“How long have you been here?”

“I never left.”

“How long have _I_ been here?” She said after a pregnant pause.

“3 days.”

V stood in the shadows, unmoving, with his hands clasped in front of him. Whatever was going to happen next had to come from her – she knew that – he had already used everything that he had to reach her and she had pushed him away. She sat up awkwardly and hissed as a jolt of pain shot through her, and then she attempted to wipe away her tears, fix her running nose and her hair. She was nervous and afraid: afraid that she would fail and lose him for good.

As she fumbled in her mind with what to say – how to start the conversation – V turned quickly and headed for the door. _He’s leaving! No, don’t leave!_ Evey leapt from the bed and tried to walk after him, but 3 days of bed rest and an armful of painkillers made her legs useless and she sprawled onto the floor instead. V turned back and in an instant held her securely in his arms.

“Evey!” He hissed as he held her close to his chest.

“Don’t go, V – I beg of you – don’t leave me! I know that I have no right to ask…” She sobbed, clutching at his cape.

“I wasn’t leaving, Evey. I just locked the door so that we would not be disturbed…” He cooed, leaning the mouth of his mask into the top of her head.

She did not wait for him to finish but just pushed on through saying everything that ached in her heart, without forethought or artfulness.

“I’m sorry, V. I cannot ask you to forgive me and I cannot ask you to love me, knowing how I rejected you at your most vulnerable.” The tears were unstoppable and she was having trouble breathing, she was so frantic to say everything she felt. “But know that I love you – that I always will.”

He leaned away and looked down at her, madly smiling as the mask did on every occasion. 

“You gave me everything that I asked for, but like a child I wasn’t ready for it all. I wish that I were a better person, V – that I could have looked upon your face for the first time and smiled. But I needed time to adjust to it and I couldn’t say so. You are _still_ the man that I love, the man that I want so desperately; with or without the mask. I am in no position to ask or bargain for anything from you, but I’m hoping that your presence here is a sign that you don’t hate me completely…”

V did not say a word or twitch a muscle. It was impossible to know what he was feeling, but his continued silence egged her on to finish what she had started.

“You told me in the tunnel that you needed me to save you…” She swallowed the lump in her throat and looked directly into the mask’s eyes. _Be there!_ , she wished frantically.

“If you let me, I promise that I’ll do that everyday for whatever time we have together.”

Evey fell silent and waited for V to say something. He remained still for a long time and then sagged his shoulders and bowed away from her. Evey’s heart seized in her chest and an involuntary sob ripped from her. She crawled away from him and held onto one of the bed castors as though it was going to save her life.

“I understand.” She cried. “I do: it’s too late. I’ve hurt you too much. If only you saw that I need you too…”

Suddenly she was in his arms again pressed close to his face - _his face_ \- the mask was gone and his grim visage stared down at her with those eyes that broke her heart.

“Will you love me like _this_ , Evey?” He growled.

She reached up and brushed one charred and scarred cheek with her fingers, finding the new cut that the razorblade had made. She hesitated and then leaned in close to his mouth.

“Can you feel anything? I mean, your skin…” She whispered.

“Some areas are dead. The area that you are touching right now isn’t.” His breath caught in his throat.

Her fingertips spread and her palm came to rest warm and sure against his face. He closed his eyes and pressed himself firmly into it, letting out a little moan in spite of himself.

“Yes, I will love you like this, V. Happily, joyfully, thankfully – everyday.”

Evey leaned in and carefully kissed the ruined curls that had once been his lips. His hands seized her shoulders and crushed her to him as he negotiated his first real embrace. She gasped as the pain of her stitches caught her once again, and he pulled away mumbling apologies.

“It’s alright. I’ll live.” She smiled shyly.

“So will I…” He kissed her again, wanting to spend hours savoring this new sensation with her.

He rose to his feet suddenly and tore a blanket from a spare bed in the room, wrapping it securely around her before she could regain her breath from the kiss. He bent to kiss her once more and then backed away.

“Stay here.” His mouth pulled into a tighter rictus. _He’s smiling! So, that’s what it looks like…_

V dashed to the door, opened it and disappeared. Evey remained on the floor. Minutes ticked by and she felt a sliver of fear knife its way into her heart. Had he left her after all? Had he changed his mind? _That kiss was not a lie: he loves me – I saw it in his eyes. He saw that I needed him too. Didn’t he?_

She climbed to her feet and shuffled towards the door. Her hand landed on the doorknob just as it pushed back, opening into the room. His Fawkesian mask back in place, V stood before her. 

“I thought that maybe you had changed your mind…” Evey looked sheepish.

“Never.” He growled as he swept her off her feet and into his arms. In a flash he was down the hallway and had edged through a hastily de-activated fire exit that would eventually lead them to the street. Racing down the flights of stairs to the ground floor, Evey curled herself into his chest placing an ear next to his heart. The beat was strong and steady, like that of a man confident in his own purpose again. Evey sighed and wrapped her hands in his cloak wishing that she could crawl inside his chest and curl around that powerful, warm dynamo. As she leaned into him, his hands gripped her tighter and higher onto his chest. She knew then what his body had been saying to her all along: that he would never let her go.


End file.
